Photographer's Note

Still after 25 years of Civil War, the place has few scarces. One can see few buildings in the background but the more striking to me was the foreground with its shanty towns everywhere as I could show you previously. In Angola, they are called Musseque after the red ground on which they are built.

Luanda was quite remote from the very fights of this Civil war apart from few days in 1992. But everywhere one can see the result of a depressed economy totally dedicated to the War. No means, no infrastructures, a city built for 400,000 by the portuguese but there are about 4 million inhabitants today, mostly refugees.

Taken five years ago when I was working there, in the pink building on the left actually. I can remember the people lying on the ground when I got to the office or left it in the evening, the small hamburger cars where I could buy the greatest sandwiches I never had for few Kwanza. The inflation was amazing, my 100 USD were translated into 400 Kwanzas when I arrived then into 950 one year later...

Sometimes, I could visit the appartments you can see in the background. It was quite frightening the first time, since there is no light starting from 6:00 PM but you get used to it. You across decayed stairs, steel doors since people with almost nothing need to protect them from people with nothing at all but a firegun, especially gangs of kids. Then, you discover that everybody is plugged on one line or pipe for everything (water, electricity, cable TV...).

So, little by little, you discover that people have quite a normal life in fact, having fun in family, taking care of their kids, working for their family. But, when you go down to the street, you come back to reality and understand why most Angolan do not live until 40 years old, why the mortality rate is one of the highest in the world... There is so much poverty everywhere...

Hi Curiouso. Os Coqueiros, my wife used to live on the building that has the big sign the big building across that looks like a mess was called the "Shake Shake building", prédio treme treme, because it was so dirty and so out of maintenance and people used to say that any blow of wind that building used to shake, thank you.